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All savvy product managers are quick to master the art of making trade-offs. But when the product you manage is part of integrated solution, balancing the needs of colleagues and customers is not just good business, says Avid Technology's Karin Monsler. "It's a survival skill."
The product she manages, Avid Unity Media Services, is just one of more than a dozen hardware and software components included in the sophisticated, high-end digital media solutions the company sells to customers in film, broadcast and other industries.
Working with Customers and Colleagues
No two Avid systems are alike. Each set of components is assembled to meet the customer's specific video, editing and production demands, meaning Monsler must collaborate daily with her colleagues who manage the products with which her product interfaces. "Which network card should I incorporate in my product? Which cabling solution should I use? I can't make those decisions in isolation," she says.
Finding answers to those questions is a matter of making trade-offs. For example, "I have customers waiting, but one component of the system is not ready," explains Monsler. One obvious solution would be to include an older version of that particular component, but that's a risk. "You don't want the customer saying 'why did you use an older [model of the server]?'" You have to manage the customer's expectations, she says.
The real challenge is not just picking the components. "Each point in an integrated product solution inherently touches all other points," says Monsler, who earned her MBA at MIT's Sloan School of Management. When you substitute one component for another, you have to make sure your system still works properly. "You can't make changes to your editor without testing it against your storage system. As your product grows, the qualification process becomes and more and more complex."
Balance Decisions for the Bottom Line
Any solution Monsler assembles may also include components from third-party vendors with whom Avid does business. Each time one of those vendors releases a new version of its product, she has to make sure it works within the larger solution. One time when working with a vendor in Asia, Monsler discovered a broken integration point. "It turned out the product didn't support [the standard encoding scheme] Unicode," she says. "I had to figure out what was wrong and get them to fix it for us."
When that happens, Monsler has to put her product through the qualification process all over again. "It's very costly," she says.
She and her fellow product managers are held accountable for every quarter's results. That forces them to balance every decision they make not only against short-term profits and customer demand, but also against the company's strategic goals. These objectives are often at odds with each other, she says.
Trade-Offs and Teamwork
Despite the challenges, Monsler isn't complaining. One thing that helps her survive is another kind of trade-off -- helping and getting help from her teammates. "I try to avoid working directly with SAP," she says, referring to the widely used supply-chain management software. "It's a labyrinth to me, but my teammates are SAP wizards."
In turn, she helps them with their jobs. "I love creating the price books," says Monsler. "They are complex and sophisticated, and the if-then statements are endless. If you work with this editor, use this connection kit. Here's this 10-Gigabit Ethernet card."
She and her fellow product managers like sharing each other's responsibilities. "It's part of enjoying the job," says Monsler.
